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Exclusive book excerpt: A manifesto for principled Darfur activism -- and beyond

Below Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal publishes -- with the authors' permission -- an exclusive excerpt from Kevin Funk and Steven Fake's just published book, Scramble for Africa: Darfur Intervention and the USA (Black Rose Books).

In Scramble for Africa Kevin Funk and Steven Fake provide a forensic and astute examination of the Bush administration's politically cynical and opportunist exploitation of the people of Darfur's terrible plight, using them as pawns to regain access to Sudan's oil riches and to promote the self-serving imperialist concept of ``humanitarian intervention''. Funk and Fake reveal the hypocrisy of Washington, which can in the same breathe declare the Sudan regime's slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Darfuris ``genocide'' while -- out of the general public's earshot -- praise and collaborate with the very same butchers as allies in its ``war on terror''. The mainstream ``Save Darfur'' movement's leadership also comes in for a similar investigation for its willingness to allow the interests of the people of Darfur to play second fiddle to Washington's foreign policy double standards.

However, unlike most of the US left, Funk and Fake do not try to prettify the reactionary Sudanese regime and its crimes by placing a plus sign against it where US imperialism places a minus sign. They do not enagage in much of the US left's knee-jerk denial of the humanitarian and political crisis that is underway in Darfur, nor refuse to accept that it needs to be addressed. They offer the principled anti-imperialist left with a ``Manifesto for Darfur activism'' with which to campaign for the people of Darfur and challenge the pro-imperialist direction of the mainstream ``Save Darfur'' leadership and expose US imperialism's hypocrisy.

Had the US left adopted such an approach before now, the right-wing dominance of this movement may have been broken, the genuine activists in the US would have been won to a leftwing perspective and much of the left itself would not -- on this issue -- now be seen as callous apologists of a tyrannical regime.

As the US is not a proximate cause of the atrocities in Darfur
-- though it clearly has played an important background role -- the activist
movement surrounding the conflict has managed to attract a somewhat unique
constellation of participants. While there is great variance in the ideologies
of Darfur activists, on the whole they are likely to have establishment-friendly
political beliefs, be they liberal or conservative, rather than a leftist
outlook. Amongst other factors, this reflects the left's understandable focus
instead on ending the US occupation of Iraq, as well as a division between
those who cautiously support a UN presence in Sudan and others who view such an
endeavor as imperialistic and can imagine no positive role for the US in
resolving the crisis, even under the auspices of the UN.

While we will later discuss the
framework in which US-based activists with a legitimate concern for both the
human rights crisis in Sudan and principled anti-imperialism can operate, it is
fitting to first examine the individuals and groups prominently involved in
Darfur activism, paying special attention to the motives, both openly stated
and otherwise, that serve as the rationale for their efforts.

Save
Darfur Coalition: aiding the victims
ot the superpower?

The umbrella organization most
responsible for the relative visibility of this movement is the Save Darfur
Coalition, a collection of well over 100 groups whose membership roles read
like a veritable "who's who" of civil society and human rights
organizations-Jewish, Christian, Muslim, secular, and otherwise. Amnesty
International, the National Association of Evangelicals, American Jewish World
Service, the American Society for Muslim Advancement, and the NAACP are all
Executive Committee members.[1]

The broad nature of the Coalition's
membership is indicated by the inclusion of both the Anti-Defamation League
(ADL) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), organizations which
each have profound suspicions regarding the other's very purpose. The ADL has
accused CAIR of defending Palestinian suicide bombers and being "founded
by leaders of the Islamic Association for Palestine,
an anti-Semitic organization"; CAIR leadership has denounced the ADL for
its "anti-Muslim McCarthyism," and for running a "smear
campaign" designed to "exploit and amplify existing anti-Muslim
prejudice."[2]

Other curiosities pervade Save
Darfur. Describing the Coalition's composition in regards to a then-upcoming April 30, 2006
rally that the umbrella group was organizing in WashingtonDC, the Jerusalem Post observed that:

Little known, however, is that the
[Save Darfur] coalition, which has presented itself as "an alliance of
over 130 diverse faith-based, humanitarian, and human rights organization"
was actually begun exclusively as an initiative of the American Jewish
community.

And even now, days before the rally,
that coalition is heavily weighted with a politically and religiously diverse
collection of local and national Jewish groups....

Besides the Jewish origins and
character of the rally - a fact the organizers consistently played down in
conversations with the Jerusalem Post
- the other striking aspect of the coalition is the noted absence of major
African-American groups.[3]

Though there has been some
subsequent improvement in the representation of African Americans within the
Coalition-the NAACP, as previously stated, is now part of the Executive
Committee, and the September 17, 2006 rally featured a more diverse array of
speakers[4] -- serious questions remain about the potential sidelining of
Muslim and Sudanese groups within a movement that has a strong Jewish (and Evangelical
Christian) character.[5]

In what is frequently characteristic
of Western movements that tend to view with some amount of condescension the
same people they are supposedly seeking to help, the Washington Post reported that the "the original list of
speakers [for the April 30 rally] included eight Western Christians, seven
Jews, four politicians and assorted celebrities - but no Muslims and no one
from Darfur"; organizers had to hurry "to invite two Darfurians to
address the rally after Sudanese immigrants objected" to their previous
exclusion from the line-up.[6]

CAIR further criticized the
Coalition, noting in a letter to the organization that no representatives from
Muslim member groups such as itself were invited to speak, and asking that a
CAIR spokesperson be included at the event. According to a strongly worded press
statement released on the day of the rally, "The Save Darfur Coalition
never replied to CAIR's letter, despite the fact that the Washington-based
Islamic civil liberties group is an original signatory of the coalition's
founding 'Unity Statement.'" CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad went on to
say that the incident "calls into question the coalition's true agenda at
the rally."[7]

It is this true agenda, or at least
the speculation that there is indeed an ulterior motive to buttress US foreign
policy designs behind the involvement of many Darfur activist groups, that has
been the subject of much speculation in left-wing discourse.[8] On a grassroots
level, it is not difficult to see why the atrocities in Darfur have resonated
with many. "No one was paying attention and I just wanted to do
something," said Arielle Wisotsky, who has been active on Darfur
and is the teenaged granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. "This is a
systemized killing of a whole group of people-it's no different from the
Holocaust"; in response, Wisotsky co-founded Help Darfur Now, a student
activist group that raises money for the likes of Doctors Without Borders and
the International Rescue Committee.[9]

Of course there is no reason to
doubt the sincerity of a group of high school students in aiming to address
what is clearly a humanitarian disaster, nor to condemn them for failing to
consider the comparable, and yet less publicized crisis in the Congo, the
interests of the US in displacing China's foothold in Sudanese oil sources, or how
US imperial plans may be furthered by a "humanitarian" intervention.

However, there are disconcerting and
in some cases racist and imperialist tendencies prevalent amongst some Darfur
activist groups, typified by the aforementioned involvement of the ADL, whose
record of concern for the welfare of Muslims is less than laudatory.

Recent history, in fact, provides an
intimate display of how the ADL reacts when innocent Sudanese are killed by US
air strikes rather than by other Muslims-killed, in other words, by acceptable
enemies. In a press statement released just eight days after the al-Shifa
bombing (whose crushing effects-amongst them an estimated death toll in the
"several tens of thousands"-were discussed earlier), the ADL, while
not making specific mention of the plant, showered the US with praise for its
"decisive action" in response to the embassy bombings.
"Decisive" as it may have been in demonstrating brute US power,
neither the attack nor the ADL's response showed a single iota of even feigned compassion
for the Sudanese people, whose plight now garners such steadfast pretended
concern from the ADL and Washington.[10]

Deeper suspicions about the
character of Darfur activism are aroused by the juxtaposition of media coverage
of the April 30 "Save Darfur" rally with that of a much larger
protest against the war in Iraq that had occurred a mere day before in New York
City.* The difference in turnout was clear, even allowing for the ambiguities
of approximating crowd sizes. Organizers for the April 29 antiwar protest
estimated a turnout of "at least 350,000" while most media outlets
vaguely asserted "tens of thousands"[11]; meanwhile, organizers for
the "Save Darfur" rally gave an approximation of 75,000, with the
press mostly referring to it as a crowd of "thousands."[12] Yet major
newspapers across the country prominently highlighted the Darfur
rally while paying only fleeting attention to the antiwar protest, even as they
freely reported its much larger attendance.

The Los Angeles Times featured a nearly 900-word article on the
"Save Darfur" rally, while limiting its coverage of the antiwar
protest to two pictures, and not a single written word aside from the caption. USA Today's Monday, May 1 edition-the
issue of record for both events, as the protest occurred on a Saturday and the
newspaper is not published on weekends-included an article about the "Save
Darfur" rally on the newspaper's second page, previewed by a picture of
attendees on the front. Not an inch of USA Today's
copy was devoted to the antiwar protest. The New York Times exhibited more fairness by having articles of almost
equal length on the events, though it relegated its coverage of the Iraq war
protest to local/regional news, while covering the Darfur rally in the
"national" news section.

For its part, the Washington Post bestowed the entirety of
its 169 words about the antiwar protest within the confines of its "Nation
in Brief" subsection, next to a comedic-relief blurb about an arson squad
preemptively blowing up a Mission Impossible III-themed promotional news rack,
(incorrectly) suspecting that it contained a bomb. The same day's issue ran an
almost 700-word article on the "Save Darfur" rally, which at that
time was apparently of more pressing relevance than the antiwar protest that
had just occurred, even though the Darfur rally had yet to actually take place;
on Monday, the front page glistened with an article about the rally,
accompanied by a story on the front page of the Style section on "Darfur
is Dying," the video game.

It is not difficult to fathom why
Darfur, rather than a war of Washington's own making in Iraq, or the even
deadlier yet seemingly easier to mitigate crisis in the Congo -- "the
worst haemorrhage of human life in this generation," according to the UN
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland -- has resonated
so profoundly in the current political climate, beyond even the imperialist
lust for natural resources and a desire to repel Chinese influence.[13] There
has been a marked tendency by many, if not most groups involved in Darfur
activism, to severely misrepresent the entire conflict along politically
convenient but misleading racial and ethnic lines.[14] Given the well
documented propaganda function played by the commercial press, it is to be
expected that in the midst of the "War on Terror," mainstream news
sources would reduce the issue to a highly misleading "black/African"
versus "Arab" dichotomy. Yet why is the same sort of language written
into the official unity statement of the entire Save Darfur Coalition, and what
does this proclivity towards blaming "Arabs," as well as the
aforementioned focus on Sudan instead of the Congo, say about the worldviews
and motives of the movement as a whole?[15]

The Washington Post, representing the liberal extreme of establishment
opinion, hints at one such motive in an editorial supporting a US
invasion of Sudan.
Lamenting how the US was "for a long time unwilling to project force"
after the war in Vietnam -- true only in the sense that Washington could not be
as typically brazen in its support of mass murderers (such as Suharto in
Indonesia and Somoza's National Guard in Nicaragua) as it was during the
Vietnam era -- the Post called on the
US "to avoid succumbing to an Iraq syndrome to match the Vietnam syndrome
of the past" and to "prove its continuing readiness to lead in the
world," all by pushing for "humanitarian intervention" in
Darfur, perhaps even unilaterally[16] -- a chilling possibility which the Save
Darfur Coalition has in the past recommended that Washington consider.[17]

It is a treacherous tightrope to
walk for principled and anti-imperialist US activists who are prodding their
government to support measures such as a UN deployment, needing to balance this
advocacy with a clear message that whatever action is taken cannot be a vehicle
for US geopolitical interests. Given President Bush's overt praise for Darfur
activism,[18] the Save Darfur Coalition's curious claim that the Bush
administration has done "good work" in resolving the conflict,[19]
and the slogan found at rallies of "Out of Iraq, into Darfur" (as if
Sudan were merely the next stop on Washington's supposed world liberation
tour), it is clearly not a concern for many leaders in the Darfur activist
movement.

* * * *

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It is because the Save Darfur
movement's politics are largely rooted in establishment-friendly ideals such as
a Western "purity of arms," disregarding prospects for a negotiated
settlement in favor of the language of force, and the use of force in this case
by self-designated benevolent Westerners to save dark-skinned victims from
their Arab and Muslim tormentors, that Darfur activism has thrived in the
United States.[20] Accordingly, the Save Darfur Coalition* has been afforded a
multimillion dollar budget boosted by donations from Fortune 500 corporations (none of which goes towards humanitarian
aid), support from Hollywood stars, and the ear of the White House (according
to a White House spokesperson, "The administration listens and speaks
regularly to Save Darfur and other groups [active on Darfur]"), and thus,
in the words of Alex de Waal, has "done something that none of us thought
would ever be possible --to start a mass movement on Sudan."[21]

Efforts to halt Western-backed
humanitarian catastrophes, such as the
bloodbath in Iraq,
or the Israeli Occupation, fail to attract corporate funding or sympathetic
pledges from the Oval Office, and are instead subjected to hostile media
coverage, and accusations of "anti-Americanism." Not surprisingly,
since these are the same crises that are directly of our own doing, they could
be terminated with relative ease by an enlivened US
citizenry. Yet in an intellectual and political culture which scorns the
elementary principle of first examining our own crimes, those which we have the
most power to stop, Darfur
advocates are showered with accolades while antiwar activists are seen as
quixotic, naïve idealists, or even dangerous ideologues. There is much reason
to be "struck," as is Mahmood Mamdani, "by the fact that the
largest political movement against mass violence on US campuses is on Darfur
and not on Iraq," or that the campaign to "save Darfur," instead
of one oriented towards halting US-sponsored crimes, is claimed by its leaders
to be the largest "since the campaign against the Vietnam war."[22]
The demands being made by this movement provide further cause for concern.

An evaluation of activist demands

As the ranks of Darfur
activists include everything from traditional human rights organizations to
evangelical Christian groups, there is a marked diversity of opinion amongst
them about how to address the crisis. Nevertheless, many of the most vocal and
visible organizations working on Darfur, including the Save Darfur Coalition,
have adopted common positions which revolve generally around the following
themes: a hawkish stance concerning a "humanitarian intervention"
(perhaps even unilaterally, if necessary, meaning an invasion) in Darfur, an
assumption of humanitarian motives on the part of the US and other Western
powers, a sidelining of the AU in favor of the UN (or in some cases NATO, and
even unilateral action by Washington), and a focus on advocacy to the point of
disregarding aid for the victims, despite their often substantial budgets.
Informed by this set of principles and ideological underpinnings, much Save
Darfur activism has been directed towards ends that at best comprise a
questionable use of time and resources, or at worst have outcomes likely to
negatively impact rather than improve the situation in Darfur.

A no-fly
zone over Darfur

Although the idea of establishing a
no-fly zone over Darfur has considerable currency amongst activists and
politicians, there is little indication that they have given much thought to
its probable consequences, beyond the feelings it may inspire of "doing
something" to aggressively confront Khartoum.

First, it is important to understand
what is being called for in regards to a no-fly zone. By declaring one, the
responsible party or parties (likely the US and/or France, due to their nearby
air bases) are obliging themselves to shoot down Sudanese planes if they enter
into the restricted airspace, something which may be construed as an act of
war, and would be a "propaganda victory" (Julie Flint) for the Bashir
regime, allowing it to rally nationalist sentiment against 'foreign
aggression.'[23] Aside from the concern that planes being used for humanitarian
purposes could be mistakenly targeted in the no-fly zone, as they are
"indistinguishable" from the aircraft used by Khartoum,[24] the actual
shooting down of one of Khartoum's planes could lead the Sudanese government to
unleash their fury on the peacekeepers in Darfur, and/or Darfurians themselves,
thus deepening the catastrophe. As noted by the International Crisis Group,
"Khartoum
might respond [to the implementation of a no-fly zone] by escalating its
actions on the ground against civilians, not unlike what happened in the
initial days of NATO's actions in Kosovo in 1999."[25]

A no-fly zone may also very well
pull the plug on Darfur's massive relief operations, and leave Darfurians with
"lethal health and food crises," a possibility over which aid groups
are "quietly appalled."[26] This potential prompted one such
organization, Action Against Hunger, to note that a no-fly zone would "have
disastrous consequences that risk triggering a further escalation of violence
while jeopardizing the provision of vital humanitarian assistance to millions
of people."[27] As the Sudan
specialist Julie Flint argues:

In the last three and a half years,
humanitarian aid has stabilized conditions for the more than 4 million people
who currently depend on relief. Mortality and malnutrition have fallen,
significantly. If a no-fly zone were imposed, Khartoum
would not go belly up. It would in all likelihood retaliate by grounding
humanitarian flights. Its proxies in the Janjaweed militias would show their
displeasure in the only way they know. Relief workers might be expelled or
forced to evacuate the region. People who are now being kept alive would die.

The current emphasis on coercive
measures conceals the fact that the US
and its friends have no clear plan of political action, no sensible project for
peace to go hand in hand with pressure on the Khartoum
regime.[28]

Yet for all the risks, the potential
upshot for a no-fly zone is also remarkably small. Though Khartoum
does still attack Darfur
from the air, "the vast majority of attacks are executed by forces on the
ground." Accordingly, a no-fly zone "would only weaken a very small
piece of Khartoum's
killing machine."[29] Given the above, and that enforcing a no-fly zone
would be "extremely resource-consumptive," advocating such while the
UNAMID force on the ground in Darfur
is under-resourced represents a severe distortion of activism based on concern
for the victims.[30]

Divestment

Evoking memories of global activism
against apartheid in South
Africa, the Save Darfur
movement is also aiming to address the humanitarian crisis in the beleaguered
region by campaigning for divestment from certain companies operating in Sudan.

Though there are ample grounds for
criticizing other stances taken (or not taken) by many in the Save Darfur
movement -- such as the failure to put substantial pressure on Washington to
adequately fund the peacekeepers on the ground in Darfur -- the focus on
divestment is not in and of itself objectionable, and to the extent it can aid
efforts to stop the atrocities, it should certainly be pursued. However, it is
important to understand the limitations and potential pitfalls of such advocacy,
as well as the political context that has allowed divestment from Sudan
to progress in ways that divestment from other human rights abusers has not.

As explained by divestment supporter
Eric Reeves, the goals of the movement are as follows:

The divestment campaign targets
those companies that list on the New York Stock Exchange and other US exchanges
which provide key commercial and capital investments in the economy of Sudan,
supporting the National Islamic Front, National Congress Party regime in Khartoum,
and insulating them from the consequences of their massive external debt and
their profligate expenditures on military weapons and the prosecution of
genocidal war in Darfur.[31]

Note that this is divestment from
companies "that list on ... US exchanges" -- it is not divestment
from US
companies operating in Sudan,
since they are already prohibited from doing so by US sanctions. Accordingly,
the divestment campaign is targeting foreign (mostly Asian) firms, most
prominently oil companies such as PetroChina.[32]

While urging individual and
corporate investors in the US
to sell their holdings in foreign companies because of their links to human
rights abuses in Sudan
is laudable in principle, it is also, at the very least, convoluted. One issue
is simply the practicality of such an aim; in light of the extended degrees of
separation of influence between perpetrators and activists, it is not obvious
the campaign can be effective. While divestment from South
Africa is often cited as
a precursor to this divestment movement, it is in reality a poor basis for
comparison in this regard, as US
companies operated in South
Africa without legal
impediment for most of the duration of the US-allied apartheid regime, and thus
were directly susceptible to pressure from US activists. As noted, this is not
the case with Sudan, and the added layer of complexity may render this campaign
a waste of time and energy that could be applied to helping the people of
Darfur in a more concrete fashion; the same could be said in regards to efforts
to boycott the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Yet even if the campaign were
successful in forcing total US divestment from foreign oil companies operating
in Sudan, it is not clear how much pressure these firms would actually feel to
pull out of the country, especially since some of them, such as PetroChina, are
state-backed, in addition to the fact that the Sudanese macroeconomy is
booming.[33] There is, to be sure, no shortage of businesses or governments
willing to invest in oil-producing countries without any consideration for
human rights (as the US does in Equatorial Guinea, "among the world's
worst" dictatorships), and thus any ostensible success in the divestment
movement may simply lead to a shuffling of the line-up of investors rather than
meaningful pressure on Khartoum.[34]

Just as fundamentally, pursuing a
divestment strategy fails to take into account that the Save Darfur movement
has far greater leverage vis-à-vis the US
government, for whose policies US activists bear direct moral responsibility.
As an elementary statement of principle, activists concerned with improving the
world will focus their efforts where they can most effectively influence
change, generally the policies of their own governments. As a thought
experiment, one might ask what reaction the West would accord Chinese activists
who opted to channel their limited energies into a 'divest from Blackwater'
campaign. In such a case, Western opinion makers would have no difficulty
perceiving moral truisms, and understanding that the efforts of Chinese
activists would be better directed elsewhere. Yet Darfur activists have largely
failed to pressure Washington to take even basic steps-beyond ultimately
meaningless rhetorical grandstanding-to improve the situation on the ground in
Darfur, such as adequately funding peacekeepers.

In no small part because it largely
frees domestic elites of moral culpability by focusing instead on China's role
in perpetuating the crisis in Darfur -- which is substantial, though again,
less subject to pressure from US activists than Washington's own cynical
policies -- the divestment movement has gained significant ground in a
relatively short period of time. Across the country, states, major cities,
presidential candidates, and dozens of universities have moved to discuss
and/or implement varying levels of divestment from companies with Sudan
operations, as well as US-based firms such as Berkshire Hathaway and Fidelity
Investments which hold stock in such businesses.

Yet if divestment is a valid tactic
for effecting change in a country which seriously violates human rights -- that
is, if divestment is supported by the victims of the abuses, and can be
"targeted" in such a way that it does not have adverse affects on the
general population-then where is the rush to divest from Israel's "war
crimes"?[35]

The contradiction is explicit in the
case of HarvardUniversity.
In 2002, in response to a petition to divest the university from the Israeli
Occupation, then-Harvard President Lawrence
Summers condemned the campaign as "anti-Semitic in effect, if not
intent."[36] Yet in April 2005, Harvard became "the first major
victory in a national campaign for divestment from Sudan"
as it divested from PetroChina.[37] As Summers commented:

Divestment is not a step that
Harvard takes lightly, but I believe there is a compelling case for action in
these special circumstances, in light of the terrible situation still unfolding
in Darfur and the leading role played by PetroChina's parent company in the
Sudanese oil industry, which is so important to the Sudanese regime.

Employing his own perverse logic,
why is this campaign not anti-Chinese, anti-African, or anti-Muslim? As the
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz asks about those advocating divestment
from the Israeli Occupation, "'Why don't they say anything about Cuba's
chilling of dissent or China's
occupation of Tibet?
Why don't they feel a personal stake in getting Jordan,
Egypt,
and the Philippines
to stop torturing people? ... The only reason they feel so strongly about Israel
is because it is the Jewish nation.'"[38]

Yet it would be unimaginable for a
figure even as crass as Dershowitz to openly condemn Darfur
activists for bigotry and failing to "say anything about Cuba."
Instead, Darfur
activism receives extensive and favorable coverage in the mainstream media,
while the voices of opponents of US-Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians
are marginalized and ridiculed, if they are heard at all.

Accordingly, the campaign of
targeted divestment from Sudan owes much, if not all of its 'success' to the
fact that it harmonizes with US rhetoric on Darfur and its official desire to
weaken Chinese influence.* Divesting from Israel's human rights abuses,
substantial as they are, does not accord with establishment prerogatives, and
thus this campaign to divest-though longer running-has failed to resonate in
the tender hearts of city legislators, state government officials, or the
Lawrence Summers of the world (evidently, no small category).

Supporting
the victims: humanitarian aid and refugee policies

Peacekeepers in Darfur are not alone
in being underfunded and largely ignored by the benevolent leaders of
civilization; aid groups operating in Darfur continue to operate under severe
financial constraints, and Western (and other) governments have been remarkably
callous in their handling of Darfurian refugees. Remedying both situations is
well within the capabilities of the West, though the Save Darfur Coalition and
many other activist groups have carried out shockingly little advocacy to push Washington
in this direction.

As noted, the Save Darfur Coalition
does not dedicate any of its substantial funds to humanitarian aid, instead
focusing its efforts on advocacy. While this is not inherently objectionable,
the Coalition also has been tepid in its push for Washington to be more
generous with relief efforts, instead reserving the thrust of its energies for
pushing for a UN intervention, or targeting China's alliance with Khartoum-a
questionable use of resources given the much greater leverage which US
activists have with Washington instead of Beijing, and the highly important
work being done by relief agencies.

It is also questionable in light of
the dire financial straits faced by aid groups in Darfur, which have been teetering
on the edge of catastrophe and facing increasing levels of attacks and
banditry, all while the West proclaims its lofty intentions for the region.[39]
As a result of insufficient financial support, services to the displaced
victims such as health care have been restricted, "Feeding centers have
had to be closed, food cannot be distributed, staff are being reduced, [and]
teachers in camps are no longer being paid."[40] At one point, the World
Food Program was forced to cut its food rations in Sudan by half, due to a
chronic lack of funding for the organization[41]; as noted bitterly by several
groups who depend on the World Food Program to help deliver aid, "A
service upon which millions of people depend should not have to fear for its
future every month."[42] The effects of such recurring funding shortfalls
are widespread, as according to the UN, around four million Darfurians depend
on aid to survive.[43]

Even with its blustery rhetoric on a
UN force in Darfur, Washington "has made only minimal commitments of
logistical, transport, intelligence, and medical/medevac resources" for
the peacekeepers, which are "the very US military resources," as
commented by Eric Reeves, "that will be most needed by any international
force deploying effectively to Darfur."[44]

Darfurians who have escaped the
region have often fared little better. With a commonly cited figure of 2
million displaced by the conflict in Darfur,
many have arrived in neighboring countries. Chad,
which borders Darfur
to the west, currently has the largest population of Darfurian refugees, many
of whom languish in squalid camps.[45]

Egypt, to Sudan's north, also hosts
a significant number of Sudanese refugees from both Darfur and the country's
south,[46] though many have been subject to widespread discrimination and
mistreatment at the hands of local armed groups and the Egyptian authorities --
a fact over which Cairo's staunch allies in Washington have been silent.[47] In
one incident in 2005, Egyptian police forcefully cleared a refugee camp in Cairo,
killing nearly thirty.[48] As one Sudanese refugee who escaped to Egypt and
then Israel commented, "Egypt was worse than Sudan. We feared for our
lives. We feared for our children. I would rather that the Israeli government
shoot me here, in a clean, humane way, than send me back to Egypt."[49]
In repeated cases, Egyptian border guards have been accused of shooting or
beating to death Sudanese refugees as they attempted to cross into Israel,
including a seven-year-old girl.[50]

While a number of refugees have been
more fortunate and made it into Israel, they have often found themselves
unwanted in the country which was founded, as repeated ad nauseam by apologists for Israeli crimes, in the aftermath of
the same crime which many of the refugees are said to be fleeing genocide.
Steeped as the nation's leaders are in tear-soaked memories of the Nazi
holocaust, the leading Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz
notes that "it appears that the state and its officials are doing
everything in their power to be rid of these refugees,"[51] with other
news sources paraphrasing the Interior Minister to the effect that
"Sudanese refugees trying to get into Israel ... had to be stopped,"
lest the country be "flooded."[52]

Though the Israeli government has
claimed that most Sudanese refugees are in Israel for economic reasons rather
than because of a fear of persecution, and indeed some undetermined number of
them are, this does not justify treating all Sudanese refugees as economic
refugees -- nor is there justification for how Israeli authorities have dealt
with refugees who have entered Israel to escape destitution.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)
dump Sudanese refugees on the streets, "leaving... volunteers and student
groups to shelter and feed them."[53] Caught entering Israel from Egypt,
there are, at last report, some 200 Sudanese refugees (about seventy of which
are from Darfur) being detained indefinitely in Israeli prisons.[54] Others
have been placed on kibbutzim while awaiting visas that will "allow them
to immigrate elsewhere," presumably to nations that do not mind corrupting
their populations with the blood of dark people.[55] As a spokesperson for
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert explained, "We don't want to be the Promised
Land for African refugees."[56]

As a result, while some 500
Darfurians are being allowed to stay in Israel, Israeli police have raided
shelters housing refugees and the army is under orders to use "reasonable
force" to repel the "infiltrators" who attempt to cross the
Israeli-Egyptian border without authorization[57]; groups of Darfurians and
other Sudanese have been "forcibly" returned to Egypt from Israel
without any attempt to verify if they were worthy of asylum, while the Israeli
government has taken the ludicrous position that all is well because it has
diplomatic assurances from the Egyptian government that the refugees' safety
will be assured.[58] Indeed, media reports indicate that Egypt has forcibly
returned to Sudan some of the refugees who have been expelled by Israel,
leading Human Rights Watch to slam "Egypt and Israel's shared disregard
for the plight of Sudanese fleeing Darfur."[59] In the words of the
leading Israeli newspaper, Tel Aviv is "giving the Egyptians a wink to do
our dirty work for us."[60]

Especially righteous critics of Israel's
treatment of Darfurians such as Elie Wiesel, who has been actively calling for
intervention in Darfur and was involved in the founding of the Save Darfur
Coalition,[61] have staked out their moral high ground by only calling on
Israel to accept a "symbolic number" of the refugees.[62] The
photo-op for Israel to look as though it is actually doing something of value
apparently supersedes actual human suffering as Wiesel's primary concern,
unsurprising for a man who has a long record of subservience to the Israeli
state and once declared that "I never criticize Israel when I am not in
Israel."[63] While some in Israel
have recognized the propaganda value of taking mild steps to aid Darfurians,
Israel's
image is the concern, not ameliorating suffering.[64] As Jerusalem Post columnist Larry Derfner writes:

It's hard to escape the impression
that the Olmert government is being humane to the refugees from Sudan's
Darfur region for
appearance's sake only. I say this because the government is being amazingly
cruel to the refugees from southern Sudan,
who are far more numerous than the Darfurians, and who escaped a genocide that
took many, many more lives than the one going on in Darfur.[65]

Any pretense of "humane"
treatment of Darfurians (or others) fleeing to Israel
has since been shattered by the eerily-titled "Prevention of Infiltration
Act of 2008," passed by a margin of 21-to-1 in an initial, non-binding
Knesset vote. With potential (non-Jewish) refugees, asylum-seekers, and
immigrants to Israel
in mind, the bill, in the words of a Ha'aretz
editorial, is designed "to signal to anyone planning on coming here that
their lives are not going to be easy." It goes on to note that:

The provisions of the bill-so
"callous" and "cruel" according to a Ha'aretz columnist that it "may be said to constitute a whole
new form of Holocaust denial" also include allowing
"infiltrators" to be held without arraignment for up to 18 days, and
empowering soldiers to force migrants back into Egypt within three days of
having crossed into Israel. There would be no judicial process, nor, per usual,
any effort to verify the refugee or asylum status of newcomers.[67] One may
take some solace in the fact that the bill is so patently outrageous and bad
for public relations that it now seems unlikely to pass, at least in its
current form, though another Ha'aretz
piece reported just a few days prior that Israel was making offers to pay
African countries to take Sudanese and Darfurian refugees off their hands. As
noted dryly, the scheme "is liable to be viewed negatively in the
world," though its designers can surely count on the usual silence from
the Save Darfur Coalition and the US
political establishment.[68]

There are also larger and wealthier
countries better suited than Chad,
Egypt,
or even Israel
to taking in large numbers of Darfurians, and it is telling that they have not
done so -- especially given their fiery rhetoric on Darfur.

Human rights groups have denounced
Britain for deporting hundreds of Darfurians, under the rubric that "it is
safe to send 'ordinary non-Arab ethnic Darfuris' back to Sudan" -- a
category with less than transparent parameters, as noted earlier.[69] Britain
has denied asylum to more than 100 Darfurians residing in the country[70]; one
Darfurian refugee to Britain, Alnour Fashir, saw the government reject his
asylum claim after just twelve days of consideration. The British government's
Home Office (responsible for internal issues such as crime and security)
claimed not to believe Fashir's account of having been a rebel in Darfur
on the grounds that his story conflicted with information available on
wikipedia.org.[71]

Most shockingly, the British Home
Office is reportedly "collaborating with the Sudanese government to question
asylum-seekers fleeing the violence in Darfur," and has "passed
information about individuals to the Sudanese embassy ..." One Darfurian
refugee attending an appointment at the Home Office regarding his status was
stunned to find himself being questioned in private by a Sudanese embassy
official, remarking "It's like somebody taking you to see your
killer."[72] Though the British government has adopted the tragicomic line
that it is safe to send Darfurians to Khartoum rather than back to Darfur
itself, deported refugees tell a different tale, and unsurprisingly so, unless
one adheres to the British government's purported trust in Sudan's handling of
rejected asylum-seekers. One former Darfurian rebel who had been deported to Khartoum
describes his treatment at the hands of Sudanese authorities as follows:

The beating and questions went on
for days. I was blindfolded most of the time, so I couldn't see what they were
using to beat me. Once when the blindfold was off though, I saw a piece of
electric cable. My whole body was numb so I couldn't feel anything any more. I
was bleeding everywhere, I was soaked in blood. They never let me use a toilet.
The room was covered with my faeces and urine. At times I lost consciousness. I
was expecting to die.[73]

The nearly total absence of press
reporting on the US'
failure to accept more Darfurian refugees is truly glaring, especially in
comparison to the British and Israeli press, which have both produced a
detectable level of reporting on their countries' own shameful refugee policies
towards Darfurians. From what has appeared in the US media, reports indicate
that, as of May 2007, a grand total of three Darfurians had been granted asylum
in the United States in the preceding four years, one of whom (Daoud Ibarahaem Hari)
worked as a translator for the journalists Nicholas Kristof and Paul Salopek,
and benefited from "high-level intervention" on his behalf by the U2
rock star and activist Bono, New Mexico Governor and former Democratic
presidential candidate Bill Richardson, and the former president Jimmy Carter.[74]
As Hari recounts, the hundreds of Darfurian refugees he is aware of in Ghana --
living in "very hard circumstances," and without, one might add,
"high-level intervention" from the aforementioned figures -- "they
didn't get a chance to resettlement (sic) in [the] United States at all."

Though cruel, there is little reason
for surprise at the callousness of Western policies towards refugees. Elsewhere
in Sudan, the UNHCR has received only a small fraction of the necessary funds
it seeks to provide meager services to Sudanese refugees returning to their
homelands from the Congo, to where they had been forced to flee and reside for
many years as a result of the north/south civil war-a war for which the US bears
significant responsibility.[75]

Even refugees who suffer directly at
the hands of Uncle Sam fare little better. Of the over two million refugees
from the war in Iraq, in addition to the more than 2.7 million internally
displaced persons, the US had as of January 2007 admitted a mere 466 since the
invasion in 2003.[76] Meanwhile, the official rogue state Syria has accepted
well over a million Iraqi refugees-and it has done so, it should be noted,
"without any help from the outside world."[77]

A manifesto for Darfur activism -- and beyond

There are many measures that could
and should be advocated by Darfur activists, demands that will help to mitigate
not only the crisis in Darfur, but also to target the conditions, often imposed
by the West, which provide much of the impetus for this and other conflicts
worldwide. Paramount in these considerations should be promoting measures which
will most likely create the conditions for peace in Darfur, and without serving
to advance Western economic and political interests in the region (or the
thesis of a global "Clash of Civilizations," inspired by rhetoric of
Sudan's war between "Arabs" and "Africans"), which serve to
erode sovereignty and prevent economic development. Also foremost must be the
previously mentioned principle that activists should generally use their
limited resources to effect change where they are most likely to be able to
make a meaningful impact; especially for citizens of the world's superpower,
this often, though not always, means confronting the policies of their own
governments, whose machinations they have the most power to change.

Sudan
and its Darfur
region will not see true and lasting peace and justice unless hegemonic
interests-Western, Chinese, or otherwise-cease to treat them as mere pawns on a
regional and global chessboard. Whether in peace negotiations or managing
relief operations, the people of Darfur
must have a dominant voice in running their own lives; in the long term, such
empowerment will prove far more effective than "solutions" imposed
from without.[78] Activists who are cognizant of these realities will
accordingly seek the following:

• Especially in light of the utter
failure of many Western advocacy groups to push for a well-funded AU force in Darfur
with a strong mandate, the joint AU-UN deployment must not be allowed to suffer
the same fate. Increased financial assistance to UNAMID would allow it to more
easily gather troops from African and Global South nations, while proper
logistical support would ensure that the mission does not suffer from the same
resource poverty that was imposed on the AU mission (though the influence of
major powers, even through funding, must be carefully circumscribed). Activists
cannot sit idly by while UNAMID struggles for months on end to find such basic
and necessary hardware as the two dozen helicopters that it has been seeking,
in vain, since August 2007.

• Similarly, wealthy nations like
the US
must provide the missing logistical support necessary for UNAMID. Troops should
be drawn from Arab and African nations, as well as the Global South more
broadly; whenever possible, countries with a track record of supporting
unsavory elements within Sudan, such as the US and China, should be precluded
from sending troops, or having any direct involvement with the mission.

• Of extreme importance for the
prospects of long-term peace in Darfur, activists must push for their
governments to exert full diplomatic energy and dedicate funds towards rebel
unification, and peace negotiations leading to a political solution to the
crisis.[79] As is, the DPA is "unworkable," and must be renegotiated
or scrapped for something new[80]; negotiations must be participatory in
nature, in stark contrast to the US-dominated process leading to the DPA.[81]

• Washington
must cease to collaborate with Khartoum's
security agency and all figures linked in any way to the violence in Darfur,
often rationalized as collaboration in the "War on Terror." Instead
of enjoying an alliance with the US and in some cases receiving CIA funding and
protection, such individuals and groups should face targeted sanctions from the
UN and be referred to the ICC (both of these measures are supported by the US
public), at least in cases where issuing an arrest warrant is unlikely to
further fan the flames of conflict., Washington must cooperate with the court
not only on cases like Darfur but also in those involving US crimes-for the
sake of Darfurians and the victims of other conflicts around the world.[82]

• Though Darfur
already receives comparably high levels of aid vis-à-vis other humanitarian
crises around the world, far more can be afforded and is desperately needed
both in Darfur
and other conflict zones around the world. Aid groups such as Doctors without
Borders, Mercy Corps, and Oxfam have been singled out for special praise for
their roles in Darfur.[83] Food aid, which is particularly vulnerable to
manipulation, must be administered in such a way that it supports, rather than
depresses local agricultural prices, and cannot be used as a vehicle for
propping up US agribusiness.[84] Wealthy nations should open their borders to
Darfurian refugees, and facilitate their entrance.

• As suggested by Human Rights
Watch, the UN Security Council should mandate that all oil money flowing into Sudan
be paid into a UN-monitored fund. This would not only give the UN leverage over
Khartoum,
but would also require that a certain percentage of the funds be directed
towards humanitarian efforts in Darfur.[85]

• However inadequate the gesture, Washington
must pay reparations for past crimes in Sudan,
namely its crucial support for Nimeiri and other repressive regimes during the
1970s and 80s, which contributed to around two million deaths, and the bombing
of al-Shifa. These funds (perhaps to be administered through the aforementioned
UN fund) should be directed towards compensation measures, such as
infrastructure reconstruction and the victims and their families.

Other measures, though applicable to
Darfur, have much more
general relevance:

• The UN should be democratized to
dramatically decrease the institutionalized power that the US
and the other Security Council members wield, which has the effect of severely
hampering the impartiality of UN peacekeeping missions, amongst other
deleterious effects. If a sufficient degree of democracy is achieved at the UN,
thus lessening the current status of "humanitarian interventions" as
a one-way street, member countries can pursue plans to create a standing force
to respond to crises such as the one in Darfur.

• Activists must oppose the
imposition of structural readjustment policies and neoliberalism in general,
which have generally impoverishing effects on the targeted country's
population, and serve to further concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a
small elite sector of society (as noted, Sudan's macroeconomy is booming, with
IMF approval, though ordinary Sudanese are seeing few, if any of the benefits).
As such, these policies are crucial contributing factors to calamitous
situations in impoverished regions like Darfur.

• Washington's policies of forming
alliances with unsavory regimes (as done with Nimeri in the past, or the Obiang
dictatorship in Equatorial Guinea currently), and militarizing vast swaths of
the world through policy plans such as the opening of a new Africom center or
the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative, need to be vociferously opposed.

That these demands range from the
ignored to the politically unthinkable in mainstream discourse is an indictment
of both the Save Darfur movement-for its naïve credence in Western benevolence[86]
and general failure to promote sensible solutions to the conflict-as well as
the left, which has done little more than scoff at Darfur activists for their
insufficient ideological and historical grounding and criticize their aims
without supplying any of its own.[87]

Far less
time and effort have been dedicated to actually engaging with Darfur activists, many of whom no doubt
became activists out of a sincere concern for what is truly a humanitarian
calamity. Leftists should attempt to work with them on ways to address the
crisis, broaden awareness of the sordid history of US-Sudanese relations and
understanding of the ways in which the US-and not just China-is responsible for
obstructing efforts to end the ongoing crimes in Darfur. Should the left be
successful in destroying a myth at the heart of much Darfur activism-that the
US Army is "the armed wing of Amnesty International," in the mocking
phrasing of the journalist Johann Hari-the Darfur activist movement will become
much more effective at promoting justice and an end to the atrocities.[88]

Nevertheless,
the rally also included former US Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright, whose humanitarian concern is self-explanatory from her reaction to
the catastrophically lethal US sanctions against Iraq, about which she infamously
commented: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price—we think the
price is worth it.” See Mahajan, Rahul, “We Think the Price Is Worth It,” Extra!, Nov./Dec. 2001, accessed 14
Feb. 2007
<http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084>. One may also recall Albright’s
role in preventing the UN from halting the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, where she “lead a vigorous movement
in the Security Council to literally decimate” the UNAMIR peacekeeping force.
See Caplan, Gerald, “From Rwanda to Darfur: Lessons Learned?,” Pambazuka,12 Jan. 2006, accessed 10 Jan. 2007
<http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/sudan/2006/0112lessons.htm>.

5Middle East scholar James Zogby, for one, chose to speak at the April
30 rally despite some skepticism about the involvement of “some Jewish groups
who had a history of using Sudan as an issue to drive a wedge between
Arabs and Africans.” See Zogby, James, “Why I Spoke at the Darfur Rally,” Huffington Post, 8
May 2006,
accessed 9 Aug. 2006 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/why-i-spoke-at-the-darfur_b_20598.html>.
There have also been suggestions that some Jewish involvement can be linked to
the idea that “mobilizing to end Muslim-on-Muslim violence in Darfur sends a positive message to the
Muslim world.” See Perelman, Marc, “Jewish Organizations Plan a Big Push
Against Genocide in Darfur,”
Forward, 27 Jan.
2006,
accessed 9 Aug. 2006 <http://www.forward.com/articles/7262>.

There
has also been controversy about the presence in the Save Darfur movement of
Evangelical Christian groups, one of which has openly stated ambitions to
convert Muslims to Christianity. See Cooperman, Alan, “Groups Plan Rally on
Mall To Protest Darfur Violence,” Washington
Post, 27 Apr. 2006, accessed 26 July
2006
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/26/AR2006042602182.html>.
The Evangelist Reverend Franklin Graham, who now professes to “love the Muslim
people” after having previously commented that Islam “is a very evil and wicked
religion,” has expressed a desire to rebuild churches in Sudan, noting that “There’s a war taking
place against the church of Jesus Christ in Africa.” See Associated Press, “Franklin
Graham blasts Islam, says will rebuild churches in Sudan,” 10 Oct.
2006,
accessed 31 Oct. 2006
<http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/breaking_news/15723359.htm>.

6See Cooperman; emphasis added. For what looks
to be a comprehensive listing of speakers at the rally, see Save Darfur,
accessed 26 July 2006
<http://www.savedarfur.org/rally/speakers>.

For
an example of this condescension, see the reaction by James Ellery, British
regional coordinator for UNMIS, to claims of sexual abuse against
children by UN forces in the South:

“I
will refute all claims made on this issue,” he said in an interview last May.
“We investigated all allegations made and no evidence was forthcoming. None of these claims can be substantiated. This is the most backward country in Africa and there are lots of
misunderstandings as to the UN’s role. Over 90 per cent of people here are
illiterate and rumours therefore spread very quickly.”

8In addition to what is cited in the preceding
and subsequent paragraphs, see, for example, Flounders, Sara, “The US role in Darfur, Sudan,” Workers World, 3 June 2006, accessed 16 Aug. 2006
<http://www.workers.org/2006/world/darfur-0608/>. Yoshie Furuhashi also
has written on the topic; see “‘Save Darfur’: Evangelicals and Establishment
Jews,” MRZine, 28
Apr. 2006,
accessed 17 Aug. 2006
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/furuhashi280406.html>. Also from the
same author: “Who Wants Peace in Darfur?” MRZine, 30
Apr. 2006,
accessed 17 Aug. 2006
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/furuhashi300406.html>.

9Wisotsky, along with others, is quoted in
Bruno, Laura, “Morris march calls on US to halt Sudan genocide,” Morris County Daily Record [New Jersey],
7 Nov. 2005, accessed 26 July 2006
<http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051107/NEWS01/511070318/1005>.
These sentiments are representative of many of the students and other ordinary
people engaged in Darfur
activism.

10Anti-Defamation League, “ADL Commends US for
‘Decisive Action’ Following Bombings in Africa,” 28 Aug. 1998, accessed 26 July
2006
<http://www.adl.org/PresRele/terrorismintl_93/3226_93.asp>. For “proof”
of the ADL’s newfound commitment to viewing the Sudanese as worthy of
humanitarian concern – still not applicable to Palestinians – see
Anti-Defamation League, accessed 26 July 2006 <http://www.adl.org/sudan/>.

For
press estimates, see, for example, Butler, Desmond, “Tens of thousands in New York march against the war in Iraq,” Associated Press, 30
Apr. 2006,
accessed 10 Aug. 2006
<http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/04/30/tens_of_thousands_in_new_york_march_against_the_war_in_iraq/>.
Also, Confessore, Nicholas, “Tens of Thousands in New York March Against Iraq
War,” New York Times, 30
Apr. 2006,
accessed 10 Aug. 2006.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/nyregion/30protest.html?ex=1155355200&en=44750b213430f744&ei=5070>.

The
spectacular popular mobilization seeking an end to conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region could damage efforts to stop
the bloodshed at a time when real progress might be within reach, experts say.

An
interpretation of the conflict as one between Arabs and Africans or even
between moderates and Islamist extremists has helped mobilize the worldwide
campaign, said Alex de Waal of the Social Science Research Council in New York.

“It’s
easy to take this simplified construct of Arabs and Africans and turn it into
something that’s meaningful, even though it may not be ethnographically or
historically correct,” he said....

The
simplification of the conflict in the media and by pressure groups has helped
the Darfur issue become so prominent in the US, de Waal said…

“In
the case of Darfur, where the situation is not only
complicated but has changed hugely in the last three years, that simplification
can be very problematic,” de Waal said.

16Washington Post, “The Stakes in Darfur,” 22 July 2004, accessed 10 Aug.
2006
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4334-2004Jul21.html>.
Some in the federal government have clearly contemplated going it alone,
evidenced by the unanimous passage of House Resolution 467, which included a
provision that “urges the Administration to seriously consider multilateral or
even unilateral intervention to stop genocide in Darfur, Sudan, should the United Nations Security
Council fail to act.” For the text of the bill, see House of Representatives,
“H Con Res 467 Declaring Genocide in Darfur / 07-22-04,” accessed 4
Dec. 2006
<http://www.beaboutpeace.com/archives/2005/07/h_con_res_467_d.html>.

Writing
in the Boston Globe, John
Shattuck, a former Clinton administration official, makes a
similar argument, noting that the crisis in Darfur represents “an opportunity for the United States to begin to reestablish its role in
the world as a defender of human rights.” See his “US Can Help End Darfur
Genocide,” Boston Globe, 15
July 2004,
accessed 17 Feb. 2007
<http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0715-02.htm>.

Indeed,
a common theme in liberal commentary on Darfur is lamentation that the US has lost its “moral leadership” in
the world because of the publicity nightmare in Iraq. See for instance Samantha Power’s
observation that the “US capacity for moral leadership [is]
at its lowest point in history.” Power, Samantha, “The Void: Why the Movement
Needs Help”, New Republic, 15
May 2006,
accessed 22 Oct. 2007
<http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ksgnews/Features/opeds/050806_power.html>.
The victims of US sponsored violence the world over might be surprised to learn
that Washington ever had a “capacity for moral leadership” to lose.

18In a meeting with “Darfur advocates,” Bush
heaped praise on rally organizers and hailed the countrywide rallies as an
effort to “urge the world to unite with the United States” – apparently, in
avoiding doing anything substantive to bring an end to the conflict, rhetorical
flourishes aside. See White House, “President Meets with Darfur Advocates,” 28
Apr. 2006,
accessed 10 Aug. 2006
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/20060428-5.html>.

should
give pause to those who have heretofore been willing to give the benefit of the
doubt to the Bush administration. This is perhaps especially true of the
gullible and excessively financed Save Darfur Coalition, which has become the
unfortunate “default” bureaucracy for Darfur advocacy in the US. A number of well-placed sources
have confirmed to this writer that the administration’s priority is politically
“managing” the American Darfur advocacy movement, particularly the Save Darfur
Coalition (SDC), rather than responding to advocacy demands—-demands that are
in any event typically impoverished on the part of SDC.

Khartoum claims that international aid
organizations are agents of hostile Western governments whose ultimate goal is
regime change. Already, threats of coercive military action are giving oxygen
to regime hard-liners. A military strike during enforcement of a no-flight zone
would most likely hand President Omar Hassan al-Bashir the same kind of
propaganda victory he scored when American cruise missiles knocked out a
pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum in 1998…

The
humanitarian’s first obligation is to do no harm. Talk of coercive military
action must end. A no-flight zone would be recklessly dangerous and would not
address the real problems in Darfur. To endanger the region’s humanitarian lifeline is not
simply wrong-headed. It is inhumane.

The
key challenge in enforcing a No Fly Zone would be distinguishing humanitarian
aircraft from military aircraft. For example, the Anonov cargo planes that do
so much of the heavy lifting for humanitarian organizations are
indistinguishable from Antonovs that drop bombs on innocent civilians. Khartoum has in the past painted its military
aircraft the white color of the AU and humanitarian organizations; it would
certainly do so again if confronting a No Fly Zone. Moreover, the regime would
certainly attempt to engineer a mistake in identity so as to provoke the
shooting down of a humanitarian Antonov, perhaps by forcing a re-routing of
humanitarian flight paths.

Aid
agencies are quietly appalled by the prospect of a no-fly zone. They believe Khartoum would respond by grounding
humanitarian aircraft and, at worst, by forcing aid agencies to leave. Even if Khartoum didn’t ground flights, the United
Nations most likely would, for fear of sending its planes into a potential
combat zone. Without humanitarian air access, Darfurians would soon suffer
lethal health and food crises.

In
the event of heightened military activity on the ground, Darfurians would be
caught in the crossfire. The people of Kosovo and Bosnia had easier access to neighboring
host countries. Darfur
is vast and dry. Its people would not be able to easily flee to safety.

Today,
as Khartoum’s janjaweed militias turn against
each other, rebel movements fragment and banditry rages, millions of Darfurians
who depend on humanitarian assistance can be reached only by air. United
Nations and African Union traffic accounts for 9 of every 10 flights in Darfur. Some agencies deliver as much as 90
percent of their supplies using aircraft. The collapse of the humanitarian
apparatus would be a death sentence for Darfurians, especially those in camps
who rely on aid agencies for food, clean water and shelter.

29Prendergast, John and Julia Spiegel, “Khartoum
Bombs and the World Debates: How to Confront Aerial Attacks in Darfur,” Enough Project, accessed 22
Oct. 2007
<http://www.enoughproject.org/reports/noflyzone_20070724.php>.

According
to the New York Times, Sudan has “one of the fastest growing
economies in Africa — if not the world.” Gettleman,
Jeffrey, “War in Sudan? Not Where the Oil Wealth Flows,” New York Times, 24
Oct. 2006,
accessed 22 Oct. 2007
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/world/africa/24sudan.html>. For more
on the Sudanese economy, see Sanders, Edmund, “Sudan just shrugs off sanctions,” Los Angeles Times, 18 Aug. 18
2007,
accessed 24 Aug. 2007http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sanctions18aug18,0,1029379.story?coll=la-home-center:

Ten
years after the US imposed an economic boycott against
what is territorially Africa’s largest country, it’s hard to see much effect on the
streets of Khartoum, the capital. Unlike the case of Iraq, which was crippled by United
Nations sanctions in the 1990s, Sudan has blossomed economically since the
sanctions were put into place in 1997 because of its alleged support of
terrorism and attacks against southern rebels.

41World Food Program (press release), “Sudan again faces food ration cuts: will Darfur be put back on a diet?,” 16
Aug 2006,
accessed 20 Feb. 2007
<http://www.wfp.org/english/?ModuleID=137&Key=2214>. Fortunately,
food levels were then raised to near the appropriate level, though this and
other aid programs are constantly on the brink of major funding shortages.

For
numbers on US support, refer to State Department
(fact sheet), “Humanitarian Situation in Darfur,” 8 May 2006, accessed 1 June 2007 <http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2006/65971.htm>.

The
UN refugee agency says it may have to scale down its operations in West Darfur because it is running out of money.
The UNHCR says it is facing a shortfall of more than $7 million needed to
assist more than two million internally displaced people and thousands of
refugees from Chad and the Central African Republic. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA
News from UNHCR headquarters in Geneva.

The
UN refugee agency says it is hard to believe it has to appeal for money when
the misery of millions of people in Darfur is constantly in the news. It says cuts will have to
be made in its protection and assistance programs to compensate for the lack of
funds.

UN
refugee spokeswoman, Jennifer Pagonis, says many of the 2.5 million displaced
people and about 30,000 refugees from Chad and the Central African Republic
will suffer from these cut backs.

46There are an estimated 2 to 5 million Sudanese
in Egypt, including around 13,400 with
refugee status (some 60,000 have applied for this status between 1996 and
2005). The majority are from southern Sudan, though many Darfurians have ended
up in Egypt also. See Sharp, Heather, “Sudanese
gangs afflict Cairo streets,” BBC, 25 July 2007, accessed 22 Oct.
2007
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6915187.stm>.

Another
Sudanese refugee comments, “‘It is not like they will put me in jail if I go
back to Egypt or Sudan, they will kill me,’ said Aida, 28,
a Sudanese Christian who slipped into Israel nearly two years ago with her
husband and young child.” See Lefkovits, Etgar, “Sudanese refugees fear
deportation,” Jerusalem Post, 20
Aug. 2007,
accessed 27 Aug. 2007
<http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1187502427038&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter>.

52Hirschberg, Peter, “Holocaust Memories Hover
Over Sudanese Refugees,” Inter Press Service News Agency, 15
June 2006,
accessed 26 July 2006
<http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33628>. Needless to say, no
similar concerns were expressed about Beirut’s ability to absorb the significant
portion of the Lebanese population that was driven out of the country’s
southern region in 2006 by Israel, as the US and Britain stalled any international diplomatic
moves to halt the wanton Israeli bombardment.

In
other instances, Israel was more willing to accept
newcomers. One may recall Operation Moses from 1984-5, when some 8,000
Ethiopian Jews were airlifted in a US-Israeli operation to Israel from Sudan, then suffering the effects of a
severe famine, though one the US long denied. As the journalist
Deborah Scroggins cites (p. 66):

[The
academic] Ahmed Karadawi had often pointed to the Ethiopian Jews as another
case of Western hypocrisy, noting that US and Jewish charities raised $300
million to finance Operation Moses, the most dramatic of the Israeli airlifts,
and care for its 8,000 beneficiaries-ten times the amount raised in the United
States at the height of the famine to care for 600,000 refugees remaining in
the Sudan.

For
an update on Israeli policy, see IRIN, “ISRAEL-SUDAN: Government reverts to
detention policy for Sudanese refugees,” 27 June 2007, accessed 26 Nov.
2007
<http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72957>.

62See Kraft, Dina, “Israel imprisons Darfur refugees - Jewish state hit for not
helping genocide survivors,” New York Times, 9
June 2006,
accessed 26 July 2006
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/09/MNGFHJBB491.DTL&hw=darfur&sn=003&sc=480>.
For a similar statement, expressing that Israel should free the refugees – Sudanese,
not Palestinian – already in the country’s jails, but only as a “symbolic
gesture,” see Jerusalem Post, “Refuge
from Darfur,” 28 June 2006, accessed 26 July
2006
<http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150885874606&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull>.
Of course, there are countries better able absorb refugees en masse – for
instance, the United States – yet this in no way lessens the utter moral
depravity of Israel’s stance.

63For more on Wiesel, see for instance
Finkelstein, Norman, The Holocaust
Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, second ed.,
Verso, 2003.

An
Israeli supporter of the Darfur refugees in Israel said Monday that a ban on the
refugees would be “a PR catastrophe” for the state of Israel.

“All
the refugees who are returned to Sudan - whether to Darfur or to South Sudan - will be executed on arrival,” said
Eytan Schwartz, spokesperson for The Committee for Advancement of Refugees from
Darfur.

But,
the Israel director of the Los Angeles-based SimonWiesenthalCenter said Monday he supported the
government’s decision to stop the entry of refugees into Israel. “This is not a question of saving
people from genocide, but about economic refugees who come here to improve the
quality of their life,” said the organization’s chief Nazi-hunter Efraim
Zuroff. He added that Israel’s decision to let 500 refugees
remain in the country was “an important symbolic gesture” of humanitarian aid
based on the past history and suffering of the Jewish people...

…
Dr. Halima Basheer, 27, who says she was gang-raped by Sudanese soldiers for
telling aid workers about the rapes of more than 40 schoolgirls, London’s Sunday Telegraph said.

She
learned about the rapes because the girls were taken to her clinic, she said.

After
telling the aid workers, Janjaweed militia soldiers went to her office, she
said.

“They
said to me: ‘You told those people about the rape at the school. Why did you do
that? You are always talking about rape, but you don’t know what it is. We will
teach you a lesson about what rape is.’”

77Putz, Ulrike, “An Emerging Iraqi Refugee
Crisis,” Spiegel, 15
Mar. 2007,
accessed 22 Oct. 2007
<http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,471728,00.html>. One
Swedish town in 2006 received “twice as many Iraqi refugees as the entire United States.” Ekman, Ivar, “Sodertalje Journal;
Far From War, a Town With a Well-Used Welcome Mat,” New York Times, 13 June 2007, accessed 13 June
2007
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/world/europe/13sweden.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin>.

Syria has recently taken moves to tighten
its border, a fact which reflects worse on the refusal of donor nations (and
especially the United States) to help Syria than it does on the Syrian
government itself.

In
varying degrees, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Congo—altogether, places where
millions of people have been killed in the last 20 years—are consequences of a
global economic system that has, in effect, favored a form of warlordism (often
exercised from the capital) over governance in which strong States, via
government bureaucracies, can deliver services and are accountable. The
mechanism by which global economic forces lead to warlordism appears to be
fairly direct in some cases: the IMF (or an individual donor government)
demands that State enterprises be sold, reducing patronage and income; a foreign
investor both cuts services and is lured into paying protection to an emerging
warlord, who trades on the State’s decline and deals in drugs and guns, which
then become new sources of social dislocation and the only viable economic
activity. It is easy enough (and partially true) to say that the real problem
lies with corrupt political leaders. But weak States tend to be more corrupt,
and opportunities and incentives for corruption are multiplied by the system of
privatization in particular.

The
International Crisis Group has put together a sensible proposal for how the
international community can further negotiations. See International Crisis
Group, “Darfur: Revitalising the Peace Process,” 30
Apr. 2007, accessed
5 July 2007
<http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4769&l=1>.

Omer
Ismail of the CarrCenter for Human Rights at HarvardUniversity, and Colin Thomas-Jensen of the
International Crisis Group, summarize the state of international efforts at
fostering rebel unity thus:

Until
the rebel groups achieve a greater degree of political cohesion, there simply
will not be a workable peace process. Poor rebel leadership is part of the
problem, but the international community’s efforts to forge rebel unity have
been uncoordinated, sporadic, and are unlikely to work until it aggressively
pursues a common approach. Toward that end, the United States, African Union,
and EU should assemble a team of diplomats based in Chad and Darfur and
dedicated to the task.…

The
rebel leaders we spoke to in Chad are serious about peace, but until the
international community gets serious about peacemaking, this conflict will drag
on and consolidate the government of Sudan’s ethnic cleansing of Darfur.

81As the International Crisis Group pithily
recounts, “The DPA has failed because it did not adequately deal with key
issues, too few of the insurgents signed it, and there has been little buy-in
from Darfur society, which was not sufficiently represented in the
negotiations.” See International Crisis Group, “Darfur: Revitalising the Peace
Process,” Reuters, 30 Apr. 2007, accessed 23 July 2007
<http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ICG/9bac7aaf58d8fafffe433781fc123476.htm>.

It
is instructive (and unsurprising) to note that the Bush administration has
acted to protect top-level Sudanese officials from UN sanctions with nary a
whisper of protest from the Save Darfur movement.

In
regards to US public opinion on UN sanctions and ICC referral, see Genocide Intervention
Network, “Darfur remains major issue of concern for Americans—Poll,” 2 Feb.
2007, accessed 22 Oct. 2007
<http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article20063>.

83Julie Flint has singled out Oxfam, Mercy Corps
and Doctors Without Borders as aid groups deserving of particular credit, while
noting that they maintain a “13,000-strong army of relief workers ­90 percent
of them Sudanese.” Flint, Julie, “In Sudan, Help Comes From Above,” New York Times,7 July 2007, accessed 7 July 2007 <http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=13239>.

One
third of the global food aid budget, or some $600 million annually, is wasted
due to conditions tying it to processing and shipping by national carriers of
donor countries, and such in-kind aid should be replaced by cash payments that
boost production in recipient states, the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) said today.…

The
report noted that as much as 90 per cent of all food aid resources may be tied
to some specific conditions, often making it difficult for implementing
agencies to use the aid in the most efficient way and ensure that it
effectively reaches the people who need it most.

The
world’s leading food donors spend as much as half of their food aid budgets on
domestic processing and shipping by national carriers, according to research
quoted by the report, with one third of global food-aid resources wasted by
such requirements.

Megan
Tady usefully surveys the politics surrounding US food aid:

Last
month, in a move that shocked observers, CARE, one of the world’s largest
humanitarian organizations, rejected $45 million in US food aid, shining a spotlight on a
practice the group says may hurt starving populations more than help them.
Complaining that US food aid policy is inefficient,
unsustainable and perhaps even detrimental to combating food insecurity, CARE
believes “enough is enough,” according to Bob Bell, director for CARE’s Food
Resource Coordination Team. The decision comes at a time when other
humanitarian and food advocacy organizations are calling on members of Congress
to rewrite food aid policy that puts starving populations first when they
authorize this month’s 2007 Farm Bill.

The
United States is the world’s largest provider of international food aid,
supplying more than half of all food aid designated to alleviate hunger, about
four million metric tons of food per year. As currently implemented, US food
aid lines the pockets of American agribusiness and the shipping industry. Under
existing rules, at least 75 percent of food aid has to be grown and packaged in
the United States, and shipped using US flag-bearing vessels. Unlike most
countries that donate food, the United States sells a portion of its food aid,
either by selling it to recipient governments, or allowing it to be monetized,
a process where food aid is sold to generate cash for development projects. And
while most donor countries provide cash as food aid, the United States insists
on giving in-kind donations.

Washington
is playing a leading role in the unfolding drama in Darfur. So we have an
obligation to know about the history of United States policy in the
neighborhood. Not long ago, Ronald Reagan’s policy in neighboring Chad deepened
a longstanding crisis and scuttled a chance for peace. This may be a cautionary
tale for Darfur, where US President George W. Bush proposes humanitarian
intervention to end the suffering.…

Enter
newly elected US president Ronald Reagan. He declared
Chad a major foreign policy priority and said the right
words — neutrality, peaceful solutions and no foreign meddling. Actions,
however, told a different story. The Reagan administration brushed aside the
hard-worn African consensus, branded Libya’s troops occupiers and insisted they
leave. To sugarcoat its demands, Washington promised to fund a replacement
Inter-African Force (IAF). The Libyans withdrew in November 1981 and 4,800 IAF
troops arrived in Chad in December. Requested to honor its pledge, Washington
became stingy—it provided 8 cents of every dollar the IAF needed. This,
combined with mandate disagreements, kept the IAF toothless.

Having
deceived the Africans, the Reagan administration rapidly implemented its real
agenda. The goal was to overthrow the consensus GUNT government and replace it
with Washington’s favorite Chadian warlord, Hissene Habre—the same renegade
warlord condemned to death by his former colleagues. The US covertly showered cash, arms and
equipment on Habre. Rejuvenated, his militia roared in from Darfur and took
Ndjamena, Chad’s capital, on June 7, 1982. As a direct consequence, the OAU
became acrimoniously split; the IAF peacekeepers withdrew; the GUNT formed a
government in exile; and its militias re-entered Chad as a two-pronged armed
rebellion that soon threatened Habre’s grip on power.

Reagan
hastily leaped to Habre’s defense. He first informed Congress and invoked the
War Powers Act. Next, he sent two sophisticated surveillance planes to Habre,
followed by other military aircraft, Redeye missiles, sundry war materiel and
even American “advisors,” whose number may have reached 500. In July and August
1983 alone, new US military aid for Habre totaled $25 million.…

Protected
by Reagan, Mitterrand, and other friends, Habre tyrannized Chad with impunity
until 1990, when an aide, Idriss Deby, overthrew him. Uncovered documents and
other evidence now suggest Habre probably murdered 40,000 political
opponents—after the war. Weeks ago, on July 2, in Gambia, the African Union
joined the UN and the EU in ordering Senegal, where Habre lives in exile, to
put him on trial.

87Upon returning from a trip to Darfur, Shane
Bauer commented:

After
such up-close experience with revolution and genocide in Darfur, returning to the US and seeing how activists here deal
with the issue has been disheartening. As soon as I arrived, the tragedy,
passion, and dedication that I witnessed in Darfur and Chad was reduced to simplistic liberal
pseudo-solutions or jaded radical dogma that merely sees Darfur as an issue of US imperialism.